The present invention relates to the processing of animal and vegetable oils and more particularly relates to a method for blending mixtures of oils to from a stable clear liquid release agent.
Mixtures of animal and vegetable oils are widely used in numerous products such as salad oils, cooking and baking oils, release coatings for baking and cooking pans and the like. Such oil mixtures, which may include additives to prevent spattering during cooking, emulsifiers, colorants and flavorants are normally prepared by blending the ingredients at an elevated temperature and packaging or storing the blend directly from the blending operation. The blended oil mixture is allowed to cool slowly to ambient temperature.
In accordance with the conventional prior art methods of blending animal and vegetable oils, the cooling of the blended oils occurs unevenly with the greatest rate of cooling occurring at the interface of the container and oil while the center portion of the oil cools most slowly. Thus, any tendency for the components to separate will occur during the slow cooling period and even in the case where gross separation of components does not occur, resultant finished products may tend to be slightly dull in appearance.
In view of the fact that blended oils are normally examined for clarity and brightness by customers, either during quality control tests when sold in bulk or by viewing in clear transparent containers at the retail level, any tendency towards lack of brightness in the finished product is highly undesirable.